"Lord, give me clarity. What am I supposed to do here? This doesn't make any sense. Help me see!"
That sums up a lot of my prayers lately. And the Lord has been faithful to answer, but not in the way I'd like. Instead of giving me clarity to see what's coming down the pike, He simply responds, "Trust Me."
I love the story of Mother Teresa and John Kavanaugh as told by Brennan Manning in his book Ruthless Trust:
“When the brilliant ethicist John Kavanaugh went to work for three months at ‘the house of the dying’ in Calcutta, he was seeking a clear answer as to how best to spend the rest of his life. On the first morning there he met Mother Teresa. She asked, ‘And what can I do for you?’ Kavanaugh asked her to pray for him.
‘What do you want me to pray for?’ she asked. He voiced the request that he had borne thousands of miles from the United States: ‘Pray that I have clarity.’
She said firmly, ‘No, I will not do that.’ When he asked her why, she said, ‘Clarity is the last thing you are clinging to and must let go of.’ When Kavanaugh commented that she always seemed to have the clarity he longed for, she laughed and said, ‘I have never had clarity; what I have always had is trust. So I will pray that you trust God.’”
Trusting God requires that we walk by faith, not by sight. That we learn how to bear with uncertainty, knowing we are secure in everlasting arms. That we surrender our plans, believing that what He has in mind is far above what we can even think to ask or imagine.
Today, instead of asking the Lord for clarity, ask Him to help you trust Him. He'll be faithful to do what He's promised.